Wait For It

 As I write this *this is past me speaking* we are stuck in another line, this one is to go through customs at the Colombian border before passing to the Ecuadorian border to go through customs there as well. Waiting in long, disorganized lines is now a very familiar feeling for Ohafa and I.

Just yesterday we had to wait 2 hours at Las Lajas, the most visited church in the Americas, to get a bus back to the nearby town we were staying in because of the holiday crowds we didn’t want a repeat at the border.

*Pictures of Las Lajas*

Turns out the 2nd-6th is one of the biggest holidays in Colombia and we got swept up in the crowds. As we wait in line at the border (we have been here 1.5 hours now) we are told that these have been the shortest lines in the days. Fish like stories are swapped about the length of the lines yesterday and the day before. Some swear that people arrived at 8 am and didn’t get through till 4 pm. We are thankful we are not them. 

*present me speaking*

WE WERE THEM AND I AM NOT THANKFUL. The way this particular border crossing works is that you bus to the Colombian border and go through customs there to leave the country. Then, you walk across a bridge and enter in Ecuador and go through their entry customs. The previous time I did this, it took maybe an hour max. 

This time, we waited 4 hours at the Colombian border to get our passports stamped. There were 3 poorly managed lines of foreigners, nationals, and elderly and families with young kids. When we actually got to the person checking our passports it took like 30 seconds max to get what we needed.

Once we were finally through, we crossed to the Ecuadorian side to find the line wrapped all the way around the customs building.The line started off moving at a decent pace but then we were stopped in the same place for about 2 hours. After some investigation, we realized it was because people who were sick of waiting were cutting the line so no progress was being made for the rest of us. Eventually people got angry enough and started shouting and shoving. The police came out to get the situation in order. It escalated before it got better – leading to mine and Ohafa’s new favorite chant of FILA! FILA! FILA! (people literally just shouting LINE! LINE! LINE!) but in the end, we got in a single file line that made it easy to tell if someone was cutting. This was done through the extremely democratic process of vouching for the people in front of you and behind you and assuring the police they were in the right place and deserved to be in the line.

5 hours later, we made it through Ecuador’s customs lines equaling a whopping 9 hours of line waiting. After all the lines, we had to run to catch a collective taxi to go to the bus station to get a bus to Quito. We were supposed to arrive in Quito around 2PM but we were now on track to arrive at 2AM. We made it to the bus station and caught a bus right before it took off for Quito. Not more than 30 minutes into the drive, we were stopped by police and they checked all of our passports to make sure we had the entry stamp. This made me feel better about waiting the 5 hours because it crossed my mind dozens of times to just enter without it. We eventually made it to Quito after our 6 hour bus ride. The taxi cabs at the bus station were trying to charge us double the rates because it was late and we were foreigners so we took a local bus instead to get to our hostel. We finally arrive at the hostel and were so grateful to be in a bed.

So now, back to the beginning. Our original plans had changed and that seems to have been a huge blessing. We originally wanted to head to Ecuador right away and work on a farm for a few days before meeting my friends in Quito. This would have meant some rapid pace traveling and some stressful days. Instead, we decided to site see a bit in Bogotá and travel leisurely down to Quito. It turns out, we never really had any choice in the matter, even if we had wanted to get to Ecuador sooner, it would have been nearly impossible because of the holiday traffic. Instead, we would have spent the first week of our trip extremely stressed out and spread thin. So, although we ended up having to wait a lot during the first week, we aslo had plenty of time to do so and were able to enjoy some incredible sights and each other’s company along the way.

During our 3 nights in Bogotá we were able to go to a bunch of really cool museums. My favorite was the Botero museum. I had learned about him starting in middle school in my Spanish classes so I really enjoyed seeing his collections and getting a guided tour.

 Here are some pictures from other cool museums.

Other highlights from the city were going up the funicular (a little train type thing that brings you to the top of a mountain). 

We wanted to go by teleferico but it was closed the day we went.

Aside from splurging on our beloved Corner 12 (a restaurant that serves pancakes and French fries all day and was a huge cornerstone and landmark for us finding our way back to the hostel) we tried not to eat out. 

In order to save money, we cooked most of our meals in the hostel. The first night we adorned our chefs caps to make rice and eggs. We didn’t pick up any salt or butter or oil so we had to hard boil the eggs and eat them and the rice plain. I advise anyone reading this blog to never have this meal. Buy the salt. It is worth the dollar. I promise.

When we bought the eggs, it was the same price to buy a dozen as it was to buy 30, being the money minded people that we are, we got the 30 eggs. I know what you are thinking, “Grace, that is a lot of eggs!” Trust me, I know. Some German guy in the hostel took it upon himself to inform us of the risks of high cholesterol and share the anecdote that if he ate that many eggs, he would puke. He came back many a time to remind us. Shout out to you German guy, wherever you may be now. Despite his best efforts to convince us otherwise, we hard boiled all the eggs. Luck we did because this sustained us for the days to come. Eggs for breakfast, eggs for dinner, eggs on the 24 hour bus ride, eggs in the hostel, eggs on top of the mountain. We picked up some salt so we could vary the egg consumption. One with salt, one without, one with, one without.

Us at hour one of 24 hours, listening to Highway to Hell. Little did we know, we were on our way to the hell that is waiting in line endlessly

The one time we decided to have a meal that wasn’t eggs and rice we ate in a convivence store. Ohafa had some water go down the wrong tube and he jokingly said in Spanish, “Estoy muriendo” (I’m dying). The woman next to us did not seem to understand the joke and was very concerned. I was too busy laughing to realize that someone was taking it seriously and was worried so Ohafa was trying to say, between haggard breaths, that he was actually fine. After that, we stuck to the eggs and rice because they hadn’t tried to kill us. 

Another one of my favorite memories so far was our last night in the city. We had originally made plans with a local Colombian to meet up at night but those fell through. Instead, we wandered the city and passed the same Irish Pub that we had seen many times while exploring. We peaked inside and saw that they had ping pong and giant Jenga and decided it was worth our time. Little did we know that a group of musicians had turned up a little before we did and played some impromptu live Irish music.

They were all seated around a table, preforming for everybody and preforming for nobody but each other. Someone in the crowd happened to be an Irish dancer and he would join in from time to time as well.

The music was amazing, and the atmosphere was perfect. It was a really surreal experience to be in Bogotá, Colombia, listening to live Irish music, with my best friend who is from Brazil as we are on an adventure of a life time and I couldn’t stop thinking just how purely happy I was in that moment and how lucky I was to be there.

Do you ever wonder how many things had to happen right in your life to end up where you are right at this moment? How lucky you have to have been and how one different decision would have lead to such a different life? From the small things that led us to the Irish pub that night, like if the Colombian local hadn’t cancelled plans on us, if we had turned right instead of left down the street, and to big things like if I had not received the FLAS scholarship, or if I wasn’t an RA in Govs when Ohafa and Daniel lived there, or if Auntie Carrie never switched me out of French class and into her Spanish class freshman year of high school. If any one of those things had turned out differently, who knows where I would be.

Traveling is always a humbling experience because I constantly am forced to rely on the kindness and generosity of those around me. It has been a while since I have travelled by the seat of my pants like we are now and it has renewed not only my love to wander but also my love for the humankind in general.

Side note: I got my haircut today for $1. Results pending. 

Hope all is well back home and across the world xx